The Edit
My first brush with creative criticism came in ‘Little School,’ when I was punished for drawing a red squiggly fish.
The stubby, waxy crayon had felt warm and comfortable in my small fist as I scribbled away at my masterpiece. Miss Cunningham walked around the class praising and patting heads for jobs well done, but she told me to stand in the corner when she saw my artwork. To be fair, the class had been asked to draw houses.
I was instructed to keep my back to my classmates until the bell rang for the next lesson. I later found out hanging my head in shame was optional.
Saturday catechism school — religious instruction for small Christians who had not been punished enough in the week — brought another kind of shame. Sister Mary, pure and puritanical, took exception to my wearing red in her celestial classroom. Her thin lips tightened like a ventriloquist’s on the words “Only a certain type of girl would favour that colour.” Too young to fully understand her indelicate meaning, I assumed the usual: “Naughty, worthless girls who were just too much.” When I wore red again the following week, my punishment was a hundred lines on the merits of not being obtuse, a penance that was not optional.
Maybe because of large class sizes, many of the educators in my North London youth were also to quick to yell “offside,” before handing out their ubiquitous red cards. These penalties accumulated over my ‘Big School’ career and gradually relegated my self-worth to a side bench of self-loathing and more shame.
Condemnation can turn inwards with little to no guidance on how to right alleged wrongs.
But this was early in my creative journey, and I had yet to encounter a different type of teacher. A teacher who would not assume that a little girl with a penchant for red was unwilling or unable to take instruction. They might have wondered, instead, if it was a soul yearning for different, or one with a low boredom threshold who craved a mentor. Maybe a mentor willing to help her draw outside the lines with purpose — not defiance. Someone who would hand her the crayons with which to draw a million red squiggly fishes in the sky.
That someone was Mrs Boyd, my high school English teacher, who never found me too much, and who changed my life with one question:
“Melinda, what are you trying to say with your behaviour that you’re not saying with your words?”
This was the first time an adult had invited me to explain my behaviour over condemning me as a person.
I think Mrs Boyd may have watched me from the sidelines for some time before showing her hand. Of all the avenues she could have taken, including easy detentions, she chose to reach me through my love of a challenge.
Mrs Boyd was that rare educator whose feedback, while direct and uncompromising, considered the person as much as the craft. She taught me that, yes, the price of honing one’s writing under a critic’s gaze could be brutal but did not have to be painful. That leaning into the learning, rather than the pain, was a choice — my choice, no matter the editor.
I miss her views on life, love and creative endeavour and wish I had taken the time as a young person, or as an adult, to let her know how much she shaped my path and encouraged my voice. However, meeting one’s heroes can be too exposing for all involved.
And exposing it was when I met and engaged the services of my first grown-up editor and hero, Cassandra.
Where Mrs Boyd protected the student’s mind first, Cassandra prioritised the veracity of the work set before her. My literary foils, and there were many, bent like soft putty when fencing with Cassandra.
“Melinda, no amount of literary allusions and erudite references will make up for clarity and authenticity. You use these things, including your humour, as a gag, literally, to avoid introspection. If you don’t believe what you are saying on the page, no one else will.”
Routinely, she bled red ink over my words as though afraid the judgemental liquid would soon be rationed prohibition-like. Some days, I would willingly have stood in the corner of her office to avoid eye contact with her blood-letting notes. Working with Cassandra offered many opportunities to lean into the learning and not the pain of ego.
“Write to be understood” was my biggest takeaway in my time with Cassandra and influenced how I still write today. This was one of her ‘non-negotiables’ and was a conduit to understanding how I think and how to rid myself of the shame of being me. Each of our sessions were clothed in torture, yet they chipped away at my long-held and suspect beliefs. Her sessions gradually peeled away the labels that had been stuck on my back since childhood.
I became less afraid to show up naked, armed only with words, sentences, paragraphs and pages stripped of artifice.
Today, my ideal editor reads for voice and cadence first before donning their revision cape. Someone who pushes me to improve within my voice, not theirs. Also high on the list, is an editor who does not assume the role of censorial teacher. Granted, I understand intellectually why this is one of my triggers, but it has no place in an adult relationship. A direct note differs from a censorial directive. Of course, editors cannot do their work with the sensibilities of every writer at the top of their minds. Yet, we can agree to rules of engagement that respect each other’s roles in a mutually beneficial creative partnership.
And as a writer, I must gracefully make space for the skill and influence of a good editor. Blind flattery and approval should not be the aspiration if craft is to improve. If this is the goal, I may as well stick to the soothing balm of family and friends whose only consideration is not to hurt my feelings. I must also learn to quickly unravel why an editorial note stings, and not push back on inconsequentials, such as a grammatical note that is easily an either-or. In my experience, when being edited by a good editor, a note usually stings not because the editor is wrong, but because they are right.
But since reading for cadence and voice first is a time-consuming business, I guess a writer’s irresistible aim is to craft a first sentence that sweeps an editor to the end of the work before they realise they have yet to pick up their revision tool of choice. A lofty goal for sure.
I continue to find merit in exorcising the Ghosts of Critics Past with every fresh editing session. I remind myself that an editor’s feedback isn’t a judgement on my worth, but an opportunity for my red squiggly fish to move more gracefully through a well-chosen sea of words.
